So, in my last newsletter, I talked about how I had embraced self-promotion and had been ‘selling’ every day in order to promote a launch I was working.
Then the launch was over, and something (maybe not that unexpected) happened.
I totally lost the ability to promote myself.
The wind completely went out of my sails.
I wanted to promote my one-to-one consultations in the run up to the new year (Plan out your year! Start the year off right! etc) but also wanted to retreat into a little hollow in the earth and disconnect from social media for a little while.
It’s totally not unexpected because I’m an introvert and although I believe in pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, sometimes you’ve just got to take a little bit of a break to recharge.
But once the break was finished, I was still struggling to get back to it, and I needed to! People won’t buy something if they don’t know it exists or what the value of it is. So, here are a few things I reminded myself of to get back into the swing of things.
1) Promoting yourself does not mean you are showing off.
Imagine if a friend had a small business you didn’t know much about and you asked her to tell you about it. Would you think it was annoying or overly salesy for her to tell you what she does and how it connects with people? Unlikely!
There’s a mindset shift that we all need to make when it comes to promoting our own work – we aren’t doing it to brag or be obnoxious. We’re doing it because we genuinely believe that what we have created is worth sharing, and that the people who need what we are offering will get value from it.
2) People need what you’re selling!
Not everyone will see the value, and that is okay. There are lots of people who might not need what you’re offering, or think it’s overpriced, or generally not get it. But that doesn’t mean that your people aren’t out there.
Ruth Poundwhite always says that you are the right person for your right people, and whether it’s a book you’ve written or an offer you’ve put together, that is such a great message to keep in mind when you are promoting your work.
Your ideal person is out there right now, looking for the kind of thing you offer. They need to know about you. It’s more about them than it is about you, so focus on your audience and how your thing solves their problem, to take the focus off yourself a bit!
Remember that even if you write fiction, this still solves a problem for your ideal reader – they need distraction or safe adrenaline or romance or entertainment or escape.
3) You don’t need to do the hard sell
Selling doesn’t have to be “BUY MY THING NOW FOR THE LIMITED PRICE OF BLAH!”. Especially if you’re not looking for a whole bunch of sales all in one go, but steady sales across a long period of time.
It can just be sharing what you do in a natural way, and connecting with your audience to help them get to know you, like you and eventually, trust you enough to buy from you.
That said, you do have to talk about what you are working on and how someone can buy that thing. If you never mention it, they’ll never know about it.
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Is it working? Well, I’ve definitely felt like I can talk about my work again, so although I haven’t been doing it every day, so…. getting there.
How do you feel about self-promotion? Any tips that make it feel easier for you?
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